The talk of Sibos: SWIFT gpi

Sibos 2016 marked a major milestone for the SWIFT global payments innovation (gpi) initiative. Designed to help corporates grow their international business, improve supplier relationships, and achieve greater treasury efficiencies; SWIFT gpi will enable corporates to receive a faster, more transparent and traceable cross-border payments service directly from their banks.

At Sibos, SWIFT gpi was the key talking point in many discussions and garnered an enormous amount of interest throughout the week:

Over 300 delegates participated in demos on the Tracker and Observer - two key gpi innovations

10 additional banks signed up, growing the gpi community to 89members.

Also at Sibos, SWIFT and its members announced the successful completion of the first phase of the gpi pilot with 15 global banks that have already successfully tested its design and core functions, and an additional 10 banks starting to prepare for the launch of their gpi capability. Indeed, the next major milestone for SWIFT gpi will be to start using live messages early 2017.

In parallel, innovations such as the Tracker and the Observer are being developed to meet the key gpi features of transparency and traceability, and ensure member compliance to the gpi Rulebook.

The idea of being able to receive the confirmation of a payment is key. Probably the number one enquiry we receive from clients is: ‘where is my payment?’

“The idea of being able to receive the confirmation of a payment is key. Probably the number one enquiry we receive from clients is: ‘where is my payment?’ If we can have this information coming in systematically, and immediately come back to our client with an answer, it will not only influence our clients’ experience positively, but it will also provide operational efficiency.” - John Hunter, Managing Director, USD Clearing, Treasury Services, JP Morgan.

The initiative also acts as a platform for its members to discuss additional payments services and technology innovations. “A strategic roadmap has been developed with banks and corporates. We are designing additional services answering critical needs of corporate treasurers, such as the transfer of rich remittance information together with a payment instruction or the possibility to stop a payment instantly. At the same time, SWIFT is exploring new distributed ledger technologies, to incorporate into the gpi roadmap as and when ready.” - Wim Raymaekers, Global Head of the Banking Market and project lead for the initiative.

To learn more about the SWIFT gpi initiative

Download the SWIFT gpi App on your iPad to discover insightful corporate testimonials on the challenges and solutions that will be tackled by SWIFT gpi.